The Range: The Tucson Weekly's Daily Dispatch

Anti-Vaccine Study Actually Elaborate Bribery Scheme

It's not just that the British study that kicked off the anti-vaccine craze was poorly executed...Dr. Andrew Wakefield was taking bribes from lawyers who wanted to sue vaccine makers. This wasn't just despicable behavior on Wakefield's part, but a massive distraction for the medical community as a whole and the cause of a completely unnecessary burst of measles cases. Way to go, Wakefield:

A now-retracted British study that linked autism to childhood vaccines was an "elaborate fraud" that has done long-lasting damage to public health, a leading medical publication reported Wednesday.

An investigation published by the British medical journal BMJ concludes the study's author, Dr. Andrew Wakefield, misrepresented or altered the medical histories of all 12 of the patients whose cases formed the basis of the 1998 study — and that there was "no doubt" Wakefield was responsible.

[...]

The series of articles launched Wednesday are investigative journalism, not results of a clinical study. The writer, Brian Deer, said Wakefield "chiseled" the data before him, "falsifying medical histories of children and essentially concocting a picture, which was the picture he was contracted to find by lawyers hoping to sue vaccine manufacturers and to create a vaccine scare."

According to BMJ, Wakefield received more than 435,000 pounds ($674,000) from the lawyers. Godlee said the study shows that of the 12 cases Wakefield examined in his paper, five showed developmental problems before receiving the MMR vaccine and three never had autism.